It was a week ago today actually. But don't worry, me and my car are fine. It was more like a minor fender bender that didn't actually bend any fenders. It was an unusually bumper to bumper traffic day on the 101. Stop and go and so forth. I was about 2 or 3 miles from my job when the car in front of me stopped. Now I had allowed for a very safe distance between us. At least in terms of slowing down but since the car came to a dead stop I had to be a little more cautious in my efforts to slow down. So I carefully eased my car to stop with a foot or 2 of the car in front of me. All the while keep a watchful eye on the car behind me. I didn't want to hit the guy in front of me and I didn't want to get hit from behind.
Initially this strategy paid off. I came to a dead stop with room to spare. The car behind me came to a dead stop with no apparent problems. And as I sat back to breath a sigh of relief, BAMM. The chick behinds me rear-ends me. With such force I was sure both of our cars were wrecked. I curse to myself and have a moment of shock and awe as to what to do now. A few moments later I say fuck it, put the car in park, and get out to go face the music. Rear-end chick is also out of her car asking if I'm ok.
"I'm fine," I replied as I surveyed what I thought was our damaged vehicles. "Are you ok?"
"I'm okay," she said as she followed my gaze to the front of her car. "How is your car?"
I take a moment to absorb my surroundings. I'm out standing outside my car on the 101 south in LA. I'm looking at the back of car that just got rear-ended. It could use a wash. Angry drivers are yelling and honking as I rub my hand across the rear bumper. It flexes just enough for me to feel the metal bar that runs along the underside of the outer material. I notice several scratches from that time I backed to close to the parking lot wall of my apartment. But there is no other damage. I do a double take and realize there is nothing apparently wrong with my car. Not only that her car doesn't look like anything happened to it.
"I think I'm okay," I say to her as she goes to talk to the guy behind her.
I realized then that she was rear-ended too. Which caused her to hit me which thankfully caused me not to hit anyone. A forth car is stopped behind that guy. But I can't tell if its because he hit car number 3 or it's because car number 3 is just stopped on the freeway.
I return to my car to get my cell a little weirded out. As I'm pulling it out girl from car 2 comes up and asks if I'm going to stay.
"Shouldn't we?" I asked.
She replied that she was fine her car was fine and the other guys says he is okay she she is going to leave. I get out of my car once again inquiry if she was sure. She assured me that she was fine and again asked if I was okay. Again I replied I was fine as I checked my car again.
"Are you okay?" I asked guy from car 3 as he was climbing back in his SUV.
He nodded and waved back to me as if to so everything is cool.
"I guess we are all okay then."
"Yeah, thank God no one was hurt." She said getting back in her car.
"Yeah."
I got back in my car started it back up and in moments I was on my way. I breathed a sigh of relief and was kind shock for a second but I'm fine now. Later I would remember that episode of 60 minutes (or was it 20/20?) where the crash safety institute ranked the Camry low on there rear collisions. A year later Toyota got wise and created this big metal bar that if memory serves attaches to the frame in a way to minimize rear collision damage. Of course the institute game them much higher praise the next year for this. Though they did recommend that if you had to be in an accident a rear collision would be the best one for you to be in based on their tests. I guess it's good I own a relatively new Camry.
So here it is a week later and I'm still fine and so is my car. I checked it again when I got to work and I've been checking it ever since. It's fine and so am I. Thank God for small favors.
But I still got ole girls license plates & car description. I mean you never know right...
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2 comments:
ha!
I had a slightly more traumatic accident experience... and although my car is still technically drivable (after having been in the shop for almost a month), it's value has plummeted from about $8000 to $"pay me to haul it away" due to repaired frame damage.
I'm sad, I wasn't ready to part ways with the black tiger yet. But these 2001 BMW 330Ci's I'm seeing for just under $20k are looking nice.
Listen, that was the funnist story because I can almost hear you telling it, and "ole girl" was probably doing her first con job, check yo draws man!
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